I thought I'd share a little nugget of joy that is "how to make ground tiles in photoshop"... basically I want to show you guys an easy way to make dirt ground tiles that mesh together fairly well.

Note: Make sure you have Photoshop CS2 or greater... I'm currently using CS 2, so let me know if it's changed since then.

Step 1: create a new photoshop document.

Step 2: using the Rectangle tool, create a square that's of a brownish color.

Step 3: go to Layer > Layer Style > Pattern Overlay

Step 4: select a pattern you want to lay on top of the brown rectangle... it's best to choose something that has a ton of tiny pieces... I chose a photo with a bunch of pebbles (the more tiny objects in the picture, the easier it will be to copy and paste the tiles next to each other without noticing where one tile stops and the other begins)

Step 5: Select a blend mode that allows the underlying color to bleed through... I suggest "color burn", but you should probably cycle through each to find what looks best to you.

@Best Username EverI kinda disagree with using GIMP... I've tried Photoshop, Paint.NET, and GIMP, and I kinda have to say GIMP is the worst of all three. Photoshop is perfect for heavy image manipulation (and drawing to some degree), and Paint.NET works well for simpler graphics. GIMP was overly complicated, confusing, and terribly slow. Just because you enjoy GIMP doesn't mean others will.

And I agree with Riven here, this isn't really a tutorial... it's just changing the hue of a pre-existing image. A tutorial on how to actually draw a ground/dirt tile from scratch would've been much more helpful.

GIMP isn't great, but it is good enough to get the job done. (And it isn't as slow as Photoshop (CS4 at least).) There are a number of reasons why someone wouldn't want to install Adobe software. A GIMP tutorial will address a larger audience, since tutorials for GIMP are more likely to be transferable to Photoshop than vice-versa. We're talking about about game developers, so there might be more GIMP users than the general population. Though it would be nice if the general population didn't use Photoshop as its default lens flare and filter machine and if there were more competition in this sector.

Even if I liked the idea of supporting Photoshop, I wouldn't use it for anything game related. It's bloated and not usually suited for that type of stuff. I've actually have only seen one program that is good for creating original and modified art as an amateur artist or a hobbyist programmer, but it was proprietary and is now vaporware. In this case, since it's possible to achieve the same thing using the same amount of effort while shunning the brand name and supporting free software, I don't see why it would hurt. And we're talking about CS2 anyway.

If photoshop is so bloated and slow then why do the majority of AAA companies require you to be a master at photoshop when applying for their game asset positions? Well...the also want, z-brush/mudbox/maya/3ds/......

I've not found GIMP to be slow, but it sure is cumbersome. Actually, parts of it are awesomely elegant, and other parts appear to have been designed by someone who chewed all the lead paint off their crib... it's very much a hodgepodge of organically-grown parts. Blender is much the same way, though at least Blender appears to be serious about revamping their UI toward more consistent usability guidelines.

GIMP is free and works on all platforms (including Linux which is what I use). If the tutorial was on GIMP I agree it could reach a bigger audience. However, as a reader of the tutorial, if you know how to use GIMP you should know how to transfer the idea from Photoshop to GIMP.

I guess you guys are right... this isn't really state the full process of making a ground tile. I did it in kind of a rush, I'll go back and see if I can elaborate more on the full spectrum of what goes into a "ground tile"

I've never really messed with Gimp... I got photoshop from my father in law back in 2004 and haven't really looked at messing with anything else.

Feel free to remove this topic if it isnt helpful... I'll go back to the drawing board.

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